St Andrews – an economic microclimate
Harry Bremner, BSc (Hons) 2018, describes how the ‘economic microclimate’ at St Andrews gave him the entrepreneurial experience to launch Tuggs – the UK’s first freshly-prepared dog food that is made with insects.
Entranced by St Andrews
Although I was born and raised in Glasgow, I spent most of my summer holidays in Elie and St Andrews and I became entranced by the town from a young age. I decided that I wanted to study here and so, when the time came, I was incredibly proud to matriculate for my undergraduate degree in Mathematics.
Although I already had an affinity with the town, I could never have envisioned the uniqueness of the student experience that the University had to offer. My initial reaction as a first-year student was one of surprise at the amazing diversity here: a fellow alumnus and I recently calculated that we could circumnavigate the globe just by staying at the homes of university friends! The benefits of living in such a diverse and inclusive environment have already served me well and can’t be understated.
An entrepreneur is born
St Andrews is known as ‘the Bubble’, and within this bubble there is an economic microclimate that makes it arguably one of the best places to trial and test business ideas. I had the opportunity to trial two.
While I was in my first year living at DRA halls of residence I realised that there was an opportunity to offer the attic of my family home as a place where friends could store their suitcases over the summer, instead of lugging them back home to the US or Asia. I then had the idea that I could extend this offer to other students, too, and charge them a small fee.
That’s how Local Student Storage (www.localstudentstoage.com) began.
Using my basic web development skills, I created a website to advertise this service. More and more orders started to come through until ultimately (and much to my Mother’s relief) our attic became too small and was out of the equation. I went on to rent a commercial storage unit, and the company had quite a successful year.
Eight years later the company is still fully operational, although I have taken a step back from running the day-to-day activities myself. We now have roughly 1,000 St Andrews students – over one in ten – using our storage service each summer.
I also created a business to attempt to bring a bit more diversity into the student nightlife in St Andrews with events featuring interesting genres of music or DJs at the Vic and the Rule. After running these successfully throughout my second and third years at university, I set my sights on creating an even more exciting, much bigger, headline event – the St Andrews Fight Club https://en-gb.facebook.com/standrewsfightclub/ . The first event was held at Kinkell Byre. After I graduated I was proud to sell the rights to run this event to my academic son, and it’s still running to this day.
Applying the entrepreneurial spirit …
When I left St Andrews I moved to London, equipped with the entrepreneurial spirit I felt I needed to conquer the world that the town had infused in me. After a short stint running a digital marketing agency for start-ups, I undertook further study at the School of Management in University College London (UCL), where I developed an idea for an insect-based dog food.
I had learned that insects such as Black Soldier Fly could provide a potential solution to the world food crisis as they are nutritionally equivalent to beef but use a fraction of the land and water and emit far fewer carbon emissions.
I had also researched the dog food industry and was astounded to learn that most commercial dog food is incredibly unhealthy: it generally comprises processed kibble with no fresh ingredients, is lacking in macronutrients and is engineered to have a two-year shelf-life without refrigeration. It is one of the main reasons why 47% of dogs die from cancer in the UK and over 50% are obese.
Thus, I founded Tuggs (www.tuggs.uk) – now an award-winning start-up that produces freshly-prepared dog food with no additives or preservatives. Our meals are cooked using fresh, sustainable ingredients (including insects), are frozen to lock in nutrition and are then delivered to consumers. Furthermore, our proprietary algorithm and subscription service lets ‘dog parents’ work out personalised health plans for their companions, with tailored meals that help them hit their ideal weight.
Tuggs launched in September 2022 after over two years of research and development, and I am delighted that we have already been recipients of a Scottish Young Edge award. We were also finalists at the Santander Sustainability SDG Awards 2022 and have recently finalised a pre-seed round led by institutional investors.
We are looking forward to an exciting year where we will be growing our team, our product range and improving our digital platform.
Benjamin Franklin once said that well done is better than well said. My experiences at St Andrews instilled in me the very same mindset – and it has served me well.
